Santa Fe Downtown Digs and Doings

My first encounter with Santa Fe was in the Spring of 1980, when I flew out to visit a friend. On the shuttle from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, I couldn’t take my eyes off the vast, color-saturated sky and the roughly textured land, an interplay of greens and browns. Back then, there was hardly a car on the road between the airport and the Capitol City. I could as much as set my cruise-control, crawl into the back seat for a nap, and wake up an hour later, safely at my destination.

Santa Fe has changed over the past 28 years, but the land is still vast and magnificent and the city still charming in physical appearance and breadth of cultural offerings. For the third year in a row, the readers of American Style voted Santa Fe the #1 arts destination in the top 25 small cities and towns category. In 2007, Sperling’s Best Places and Business Week awarded Santa Fe second place in The Top 10 places for artists.

Yet the factors that make Santa Fe attractive to artists–a diverse and fairly youthful population, the number and variety of museums, the amount of dance, theater, film, symphony, chamber and choral music, the quality of photographic and Fine Arts education, and other cultural offerings–make it a terrific place for all of us.

Three weeks ago, SantaFe.com held its first Economic Forum whose purpose was, in the words of moderator, Michael French, to examine and address “…how all this turmoil will specifically affect our economy, and what we can do together to survive and even prosper.” Each member of the Panel was chosen to offer a different take on the proverbial elephant. Though hardly definitive, there was a good effort to provide balance and an opening dialogue.

If I see a silver bullet solution to the question of what we can do to survive and prosper in these economically crazy times, it is this: to see, celebrate and support the tremendous creative resources we have in our little town. As someone who grew up immersed in the arts of two, culturally rich Midwestern cities, Minneapolis and Chicago, I believe in power of the creative sector to give a community dignity, cohesion, vitality and internal wealth.

Santa Fe isn’t perfect. Like any place-or any person-there are things to love and things that frustrate. But what impresses me so deeply, what has brought me back time and again and caused me to adopt this place as my hometown, is its spirit: creative, hungry, at times conflictual, but richly resourceful.

So that’s what this blog is going to be about: things, people, places and events that give Santa Fe its special character. We’ll also talk about real estate because that’s our bread and butter and something we know a lot about. Check out our website at: santaferealestatedowntown.com. Thanks for reading.